The Way Into Mist Village (Naruto)

45: Suspension Bridge Effect

[OP: "Notos"--The Oh Hellos]

Before they got to the mountain, they had to cross another stream.

Thankfully it was smaller and had a lot more stones in it, so even the heroes could hop across it without much trouble.

Then the slope of the ground became sharper, and the mountain was closer, and then they were starting at its base almost before they knew it.

Sai could have saved them time if they flew, but they all wanted to conserve his special paper, since he'd not be able to get more of it till they go to the village, so they decided to save it for an emergency.

However, none of the shinobi were from mountainous areas except for Leaf, and they rarely climbed the ones by their village, so even they were not looking forward to this.

At first it wasn't so bad--for maybe one hour.

Then they all began to feel it. Even using chakra to boost their movement didn't take away all the effects of gaining altitude.

Shine reminded them to drink water so often that it got annoying, and some of them told her so--but, by later in the day, they started to feel the lack of it.

They were hungry more and faster than before, and thirsty, and some of them felt sick. The hero students were used to living at sea level in Japan; UA was not in the mountains.

Wally was okay, as long as he kept eating and drinking, but Dabi was struggling.

Kankuro, since he had more to carry, was lagging behind.

Sasuke was too. He was still tired, despite having slept more the night before than usual. 

Karin also wasn't that fit compared to the others and was lagging more and more.

Naruto tried to help her with clones, but he couldn't make them as much as he had before without the Fox Spirit.

Sometimes he wished he had not given that up, but, of course, he didn't really think it was fair to keep the Fox locked up.

Sometimes the others wondered where the Tailed Beasts had gone and if they would ever turn up again, but it seemed better not to speak of it.

That night they camped in a hollow of the mountain itself.

* * *

Day 25:

The next morning, many of them felt strange when they woke up.

Shine said it was dehydration.

But this was a new problem: They didn't have a way to refill water except with Shoto's ice, which would put a strain on him.

Sai said that there would probably be a stream on the mountain. He saw them when he flew over mountains. But there was none right now. 

Temari was against setting out to look for them. She was a desert person, used to rationing water, and most desert shinobi just drank less water period. They used chakra to compensate for it.

However, that was harder to do with the team, and it presented a new challenge for her also.

Wally suggested they just speed up their walk. Easy for him to do. 

Hanabi was more tired that day than before--which was also because of the altitude--but also crankier.

Of course, the air was getting thinner the more they went up, though they weren't high enough for it to be very noticeable.